Pre-Halloween Sneak Peek

Manburger and I won awards for our costumes at our ward's trunk or treat!  I'd like to say that it was stiff competition, but most of the adults didn't dress up.  I had to have my mermaid moment before I donate my hair in a few weeks.  And Manburger was a great smarmy pirate; he even wore a clip-on earring the whole night and let me pencil in some facial hair.   Stay tuned later this week for photos of a witch, a firefighter, and a dragon.

Christmas Stuff a Little Late

These aren't all Christmas pictures and they aren't in order, but I'm not going to fight it. Here we go.

This is thanksgiving dinner. I smoked the turkey, which tasted pretty alright. The sides were all wonderful, too. 

The kids checking their stockings Christmas morning. Eliza is wearing a swimsuit because why not?

Timer photo Christmas Eve in our new Christmas pjs.

Kids in Christmas pajamas, Eliza holding her pink baby doll.

We warned Clark not to stick his hand in the electric mixer bowl.

Gingerbread houses have become an annual tradition.

I guess pre-lit trees don't do so well by time you reach Christmas number seven, but this is really sad.

The kids really enjoyed helping decorate the tree (including wrapping lights around it [see previous image]).

It was Eliza's year to put the star on top, and she was very excited to do it.

We went to a creche festival at a building up in Allen and they had a dress up for pictures spot.

Christmas tree in the downtown park/play area.

Impromptu family picture taken after church on Christmas Eve.

Christmas Eve dinner was a homemade chicken pot pie. It was fabulous.

That's all. We had a great Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Years.

Changes over 4 years

Will post more later, but wanted to put this up. We found a picture of older kids with Santa at Half Price Books from 2013, and compared it to the one from this year. They grow up so fast! Eliza had no interest in sitting near Santa. She did tell him from a safe distance that she wanted a pink baby doll.